Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Tamil Nadu’s Hindus felt little or no sense of Hindu involvement in the just concluded Assembly elections; and this notwithstanding the fact that across the country the Abrahamic so-called minorities, as always, participated in the elections with full consciousness of their religious identity and their religious commitment to chip away at national self-identity until the goal is reached – to politically dis-empower Hindus and de-Hinduise the Hindu Nation.

The BJP, wherever it succeeded, even without a Hindu agenda, and sometimes even after blatant pandering of Abrahamic minorities, rode to victory perched on RSS shoulders; it failed whenever the RSS refused to instruct its cadre to work actively for BJP victory. The RSS has still not decided, to the detriment of its own wellbeing and that of Hindus, if it wants to carry the dead weight of a characterless BJP on its shoulders.

Narendra Modi, although he does not fit into any of the above categories, like his good friend Jayalalithaa, is yet to learn that he is neither omnipotent nor infallible, and still has other lessons to learn.

The RSS is beginning to look increasingly like a failed Hindu organization without the capacity to create a political delivery mechanism with the unapologetic, unambiguous and uncompromising objective to serve Hindu interests. Unless the RSS wants to diminish itself to being simply another NGO working in the social sector, it has to make the conscious decision to influence the polity and empower Hindus to put in place a self-conscious Hindu government.

The Hindu Nation can be protected from anti-Hindu forces only by a HinduState; and for the benefit of the unthinking among us let it be reiterated that a HinduState is not to be equated with Abrahamic theocratic states. If empowerment does not lead to political power, it is no empowerment; and if the fast-track ascendancy of the Abrahamic minorities continues unchecked, then any measure of success that Hindus have achieved in any field can and will be dissipated to eventually favour only the Abrahamic minorities.

Now that Mamata Banerjee has announced that the Sachar Committee report will be implemented in full in W. Bengal, and Jayalalithaa has already promised the Christians in Kanyakumari that if returned to power, Tamil Nadu will be the first state-proclaimed Christian Kingdom of God on Earth, it is imperative to look at TN’s elections and results from a Hindu perspective.

The first myth which must be ruthlessly shattered is that these elections were fought on a battlefield were dharma was confronted by adharma. The Tamil Nadu elections were simply a turf war between two contending anti-Hindu parties - the DMK and AIADMK, with their fractious, factious, internecine dravidian satellites adding to the cacophony.

In 2006, when Jayalalithaa was riding the crest of despotic power and all poll forecasts predicted that she would bulldoze her way to power, she did lose, and lose resoundingly, because other invisible and unfelt forces defeated her. There is no single, convincing political, sociological or psephological argument yet as to why Jayalalithaa lost the elections in 2006 despite good governance and efficient civic administration. Lesson Number 2 for Narendra Modi.

The writer however is convinced that the good old law of natural justice, which the writer calls the Flawless Logic of Karma, caught up with Jayalalithaa and she was made to pay the price for her demoniac assault upon the seers of the Kanchi matham. The tragedy of Tamil Nadu is that while the laws of karma operate inexorably against evil-doers, they operate just as inexorably against self-absorbed and unconscionable Hindus too, for failing to create a driving force to protect dharma and dharmi.

Although the DMK, the AIADMK and even the BJP refused to set a Hindu agenda for the elections in Tamil Nadu, Hindus could still have voted as Hindus. The Law of Karma could not give Hindus choices that were not commensurate with their Hindu consciousness and therefore gave the Hindus of Tamil Nadu only one choice – to choose the lesser or greater evil, the DMK or the AIADMK. Jayalalithaa’s victory was Draupadi’s defeat.

In every dharmic society two categories of people are inviolable – women and sanyasis, because they are the life-force of the two fundamental institutions that define and sustain Hindu dharma – marriage/family and Sanyasaashrama. And that is why, as an expression of the highest respect accorded to them, in Hindu homes and Hindu society, people do not touch or come physically close to women and sanyasis.

When Jayalalithaa laid her hands on Pujya Jayendra Saraswati (Periava) and Pujya Sankaravijayendra Saraswati (Bala Periava) and lodged them in prison, it was akin to Dushasana dragging menstruating Draupadi by her hair to the royal court where her robes were stripped off her. That Draupadi could not be disrobed completely and the revered Kanchi seers could not be kept endlessly in jail or dislodged from their peethams does not mean that the duraatmas did not try; it also does not exonerate the Kauravas or Jayalalithaa and her accomplices of unpardonable violation of dharma.

-Pujya Jayendra Saraswati Swami was tricked into going with the Tamil Nadu police for ‘questioning’ while in actual fact Pujya Periava had been arrested but not informed of it until he had been lodged in jail

-Some bhaktas of the Matham close to Jayalalithaa had prior information of the arrest

-Powerful bhaktas of the matham who called themselves Paramacharya’s bhaktas moved swiftly to silence the RSS, the Hindu Dharmacharya Sabha and important mathathipathis, powerful Hindu voices in industry and other professions and prevented them from stepping forward to put pressure on Jayalalithaa to release Pujya Periava from jail under the pretext that the matter was internal to the Kanchi matham and none except the Paramacharya’s bhaktas would deal with it as they deemed fit. As it turned out they dealt with it by doing nothing

-At least two powerful Acharyas refused bluntly to the writer’s face to involve themselves or the HDAS in the issue

-The writer and her dear friend Badri were accursed to have seen Pujya Bala Periava in the privacy of his chambers, sunk in deepest sorrow, mind-numbing and paralysing sorrow and grief as his Guru remained in prison

-The very same Paramacharya’s bhaktas led by the Param bhakta who silenced all criticism of Jayalalithaa, who refused to lift their little finger to get Pujya Periava released from prison, however went around the country influencing opinion against the seers in powerful sections of Hindu society and were also exerting enormous pressure on both Pujya Jayendra Saraswati Swami and Pujya Bala Periava to step down from the peetham

-Jayalalithaa, emboldened by the support that she received from this section of bhaktas stepped up her asuric mission against the matham

-She froze all bank accounts of the matham and the writer was witness to boys and young men being trained in the vedapathashala being sent back to their homes

-Orphanages and old age homes, shelters for destitute women run by the matham had no money and it does not require great intelligence to imagine the plight of the children, women and the aged living in these homes

-The Kalavai matham itself did not have even the requisite meager resources to feed those who came to seek Pujya Periava’s darshan after his release

-This was used as excuse by this bunch of saboteurs to attempt to relieve Pujya Periava of all control over the innumerable Trusts belonging to the matham; an attempt was even made to wrest Power of Attorney from Pujya Periava so that this group could now control the Trusts and the monies

-Jayalalithaa had a compliant judge deny Pujya Periava bail in the Madras High Court

-Even as all this was happening, the Paramacharya’s Param bhakta lost no time in packing the matham with his loyalists and sycophants in all administrative and managerial posts and positions. To a pointed question about the total take-over of the matham by the Param bhakta and his acolytes, the bhakta told the writer that he had been mandated by the Paramacharya (from his heavenly abode?) to “cleanse the matham”

-This was a well-planned and calculated coup d’etat against both seers by a section of the matham; Jayalalithaa was only the all-powerful state instrument

-This coup could have been achieved only by state power, only by people who used their closeness to Jayalalithaa to remove the acharyas physically from the matham

-Jayalalithaa had some policeman administer drugs to Pujya Periava in jail and also permitted some scumbag to engage Pujya Periava in conversation. Leading questions about Pujya Periava’s role in an uninvestigated murder were posed to the seer; Pujya Periava was taunted and mocked; we all saw the video of this horrific abuse of Pujya Periava’s person aired on all news channels; as Pujya Periava, his speech slurred by the drugs injected into him, lost balance and fell over on his side, toppling to the ground, hundreds of hearts broke in anguish and shame that we could not protect him from this sacrilege

-Jayalalithaa sent hundreds of policemen in shoes and boots into the sacrosanct premises of the matham to arrest Pujya Bala Periava and to a sharp question about how policemen could enter a temple with shoes on their feet, Jayalalithaa remarked that the matham was no temple and only a burial ground (sudukaadu), a veiled reference to the fact that Pujya Paramacharya is interned in the matham

-Those were the times for Jayalalithaa-orchestrated and encouraged free-for-all. Editorials, columns and news room discussions, public meetings, interviews, were designed and crafted to malign and abuse the matham. Charges ranging from gun-running, drug trafficking and womanising were leveled by any passing individual on the street willing to sell his or her soul for a few thousand rupees

-The then incumbent Sarsanghachalak, faithfully mouthing the lines given to him by Paramacharya’s Param Bhakta, announced to a horrified country that bhaktas must not lose heart as soon they would have a new mathathipathi on the peetham.

This was the Param Bhakta’s diabolic coup de grace. It was also mission accomplished; well, almost.

After Pujya Periava was released from prison, the writer has witnessed in Kalavai, on three occasions, tears welling uncontrollably in Pujya Periava’s eyes and had to beseech His Holiness to not allow them to fall to the ground. If even one drop of Pujya Periava’s tears had fallen to the ground, as certain as night follows day, Hindus collectively would have been annihilated, and deservedly annihilated.

And that is why this needed to be told again; that is why the wound had to be opened again. Hindus of Tamil Nadu have placed the sceptre into the very hands which used the power vested in the sceptre to defile the Kanchi matham. This was not simply about the Kanchi matham; this was about a virulent anti-Hindu polity mounting its most dastardly attack yet against Hindus, Hindu society and Hindu religion. What many Hindus do not know is that the case against Pujya Periava is still pending in the courts. They have not been brought to closure and Jayalalithaa is back in Fort St. George. Jayalalithaa’s victory is Draupadi’s defeat.

Every Hindu who made this possible actively or passively has earned the wrath of the gods. The gods may even forgive all slight offered to them; they may even forgive those who demolished temples or looted temple wealth, but they do not forgive those guilty of gurudroha and those guilty of defiling the highest institution in Hindu dharma. Lesson Number 3 for Narendra Modi.

BJP NEEDS, AND HAS, A BIG IDEA:An analysis of the political, societal and security related developments that affect India as it readies to reclaim its place among the great nations of the world.

Some things are best said bluntly. Yes, wise men advise that it is better to lace the truth with sugar. But there are times when sugar cannot be its own antidote. And, with much syrup being served by some, this to my mind is one of them.

The BJP is in a mess and heading towards total disarray. This is the only truth that both its enemies and well wishers agree on. And this is where the divergence starts: What is the way forward for the party, if it has to re-emerge as a real alternative to the Congress?

The dominant current view, propagated by sections of media that are difficult to distinguish from the publicity wings of the Congress and, ironically, by some BJP leaders and their agents in the media, is that the BJP needs faces and projections that are “acceptable” to those who might be its future allies, and not “communal” leaders, no matter how good their record of governance etc.

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Their continued failure – deliberate or otherwise – is being dumped on the party. So, the BJP’s worst ever performance in Assam where it won a pathetic four seats and its failure to get even one seat even in West Bengal, not to mention Tamil Nadu and Kerala where again it failed to open its account, is deviously being shown as its inability to increase its presence beyond the areas where it is strong. Implied in this argument is that the failure is only due to its policies, programs and ideology, and that the so-called national leaders of the party cannot be blamed for it. They remain the best thing that could have have happened to the BJP.

Out of this deceitful argument flows the next one: the BJP has no hope of reversing the situation and must accept the reality that, no matter what the Congress does to destroy itself, it is not the BJP but other parties who will reap the benefit and emerge stronger. Therefore, in 2014, if a weakened BJP wants to have any chance of coming back to power, it has to project a “secular” leader who will be acceptable to all the allies that the party will have to rely on more than ever to get that coveted chair in South Block. If it projects a polarising leader like Narendra Modi as PM, its dream will die.

And who are the two most “acceptable” leaders that the BJP has? Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj -- unless, of course, Advani decides to take another shot. And which one of the two can and will be summarily turned into an also-ran, thanks to very, very serious allegations of corruption, media frenzy and – I have little doubt – some tapes ready to be played at just the right time? That will leave only Arun Jaitley in the race.

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The BJP, as one sophisticated Jaitley-worshipper and Modi-hater recently wrote, needs a big idea. Unfortunately, his ‘big idea’ is all about petty manipulation, has little to do with the BJP and is limited to the object of his worship. He knows better than anyone that the caucus running the party has not brought any incremental votes to the party and will not in future too. On the contrary, it will only lose votes, and many.

The big idea, therefore, has necessarily to be a bold idea, one that can credibly project the BJP as significantly different from the Congress, not as the poor photocopy it is looking like now. There is one such idea that the Congress party is most worried about, and to destroy which it has deployed the complete might of the party and the state. This idea, as you must have guessed, is an epochal change-agent called Narendra Modi. If this huge idea cannot do it for the BJP, the small, stale and smelly ones in circulation certainly will not.